This is a must have for any teacher to keep in their bag of tricks. Whether you have students work independantly or as a whole class these quick vocabulary exercises breath energy back into students between teaching lessons. I actually tear out the pages and slip them into sheet protectors. Then I let the students work independantly with expo markers. They always want to know when we can do more! Daily Word Ladders: Grades 1-2: 150+ Reproducible Word Study Lessons That Help Kids Boost Reading, Vocabulary, Spelling and Phonics Skills!
I teach resource special ed, and it is always a challenge to find something that the students LIKE to do. This is it! Everyday we "do a ladder". I give help and prompting based on the students need. It is easy to tailor this for each student. It improves their vocabulary and teaches them how to think. I have used this series with students from 2nd grade through 5th grade. I LOVE this series.
I bought this to add to our homeschooling curriculum. I gave it to my first grade son hoping for a fun way to have him think about words - how they are spelled, how they relate to one another, etc. It's been fun,it doesn't take long and it requires him to use his brain. I love it!
I have both the 1-2 and 2-3 versions of this workbook. I teach 2nd grade. I like this idea; however, the 1-2 is too easy for my students and the 2-3 is too difficult. There are some fairly obscure words on the 2-3 version...
I bought this book for my girls, ages 5, 7 and 8. Of course it's a little too difficult for my 5 yr old, so she gets help from her sisters, and it's sometimes too easy for the older two, but we plan to get the next step up when we are done with this one.
This is how we use it: I'll say the first word at the bottom of the ladder and ask one of them to write the word for me on a dry erase board. Then I'll give the clue for the next word and have another one of my daughters change the word on the dry erase board to make the new word, and so on and so on. They beg me to play word ladders. It's a ton of fun for all of us, and also a great learning activity.
My son is four and a half, and will be entering kindergarten in the fall. I wanted to prepare him (and us!) as much as I could, so we treat this book like homework. Every night we sit down for 10-20 minutes, completing a page or three, and while it's educational, it's also a lot of fun for us as a family. To complete a "ladder" you're given a 3- to 4-letter word at the base. The next rung asks you to change either a vowel, the last letter, first letter, etc., and gives you a clue as to what the answer should be (ie: this is a sticky substance that comes from trees - sap). You change a letter on each rung, until you have the finished word at the top.
I love this book for several reasons. First, the words are challenging but perfectly readable for a 4-year old, and my son feels accomplished by the time he's finished a page and has read all the words on his own. Second, it introduces concepts like "vowel" and teaches how the letters come together to make sounds. By playing a game with the ladder, you see how changing the vowel changes the whole word, or how endings sound the same even when you change the start of a word. We have fun rhyming while doing the exercises. Last, anything that makes learning fun for my son is a huge plus for me. After the first week, he asked to do a ladder without my even mentioning it, and now we look forward to it every evening. Since it's in black and white and with large outlines, we even color the pictures on the ladder when we're done.
My only complaint is the price. At almost thirteen dollars it seems a bit steep for 150 pages, but for the fun we've had, I find it more than worth it!
My six year old daughter has attention disorder. She doesn't keep close attention at any activity except when I read to her. This book was different. She liked so much that I had to say when it was time to go to bed and leave the book aside. She was challenged and she wanted to get up the ladder so much that she asked me to keep doing it. - Language Arts - Reading - Attention Deficit Disorder'
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